Azad Jammu Kashmir police of Kotli district has succeeded in arresting at least ten local human smugglers so far, allegedly involved in illicit trafficking of over 50 of ill-fated human beings, belonging to various parts of Kotli district, who later lost their lives following capsizing of an extremely over-loaded boat with over 800 persons on board, in the Greece Sea waters on June 14, official sources said. Case has been registered against the arrested accused in Khuiratta Police Station under sections 322, 418, 419 and 34 APC and further investigations are in progress, Deputy Commissioner Kotli Ch. Haq Nawaz told APP on Sunday.
The alleged smugglers booked by the Khuiratta police station were identified as Ch. Zulqarnain Ch. r / o Dhanan (currently living in Libaya, Muhammad Shahbaz, son of Nawab, Tallat s/o Rasheed of Bandli, Sajid of Gjrat, Ch. Zaffar, Mehtab, of Danna village, Assad Niazi, Sohail Iqbal, Manazer Hussain, Asif Khan, Zaffar Iqbal, Fareed Khan and other unidentified accused. These accused had allegedly formed a gang of human smugglers who used to mint the heavy money from the innocent persons attracting them of shifting to Europe and other developed countries under the bogey of getting them accorded heavy salary jobs abroad. On June 14 (this month), the accomplices of the accused got boarded on an extremely overloaded boat in the sea waters of Greece for traveling to the stipulated countries.
The boat later capsized because of the overload of about 800 persons in the boat of a capacity of only 300 persons, leaving big majority of the persons drowned. Over a hundred of the persons were survived. Two of the survived persons reportedly belong to AJK. More details are awaited. Station House Officer (SHO) Khuiratta Police Station Inspector Suhail Yousaf has started investigations.
The DC continued that 27 of the persons, missing in the tragic incident, mostly belonging to Bandli village of Khuiratta town of Kotli district, on board of the ill-fated boat have been identified so far. The missing persons belonging to the Kotli district including Imran s/o Wazir Hussain, Abdul Salam, Sajid Aslam, Abdul Jabaar, Touqeer Perveiz, Owais, Sajid Yousaf, Sameer, Sumraiz, Yasir Khan, Ali Raza, Muhammad Raees, Arshad, Khadim Hussain, Hameed son of Deen Muhammad, Muhammad Naveed, Nasir Iqbal, Azad, Nabeel, Akaash, Inam, Yasir Hussain, Muhammad Sunayal, Abdul Raoof, Muhammad Shahbaz, Rizwan ul Haq and Shahid Sarwar, the residents of Khuiratta, Kala Dub, Gorra Balayal, Kotaira Undera, Chitter Joqalpal, Saira Manjwar and Bandli villages of Khuiratta sub division and asll as Charhoi town. Details about rest of missing persons belonging to Kotli district are awaited.
The Deputy Commissioner Ch. Haq Nawaz said that preliminary investigations about these missing persons revealed that these people had left their homes about 2 and half month ago for moving to Italy and Libya in search of employment unlawfully through human smugglers, who posed them as the recruitment agent minting hefty money from these ill-fated persons. “Whereabouts of the above missing persons are still unknown”, the DC said adding that further probe into the big tragedy containing massive loss of innocent lives caused by the human smuggling is in progress.
